Big 12 Shifts Dates For Two UCF Knights Football Games
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The UCF Knights football team is playing under the Friday night lights a couple of times in 2026.
On Saturday morning, the Big 12 Conference, along with broadcast partners ESPN and Fox, announced the selection of nine conference football games to be played on weekdays during the 2026 season. Two of them were UCF home games.
Mission X will be under the stars 🚀✨ pic.twitter.com/QZjVeaoeG3
— UCF Football (@UCF_Football) April 10, 2026
The first game affected by this decision was the Knights' game against Baylor, originally scheduled for Halloween and now set for Oct. 30. Shortly after the Big 12’s announcement, UCF officially announced the game is going to be its 2026 Space Game. It is set to be the 10th edition of the game and, should it proceed as scheduled, it would be the fifth time that it would be played on a weekday and the third time it would be played on a Friday, joining last season's edition of the game.
No better show in the 407 than
— UCF Football (@UCF_Football) April 10, 2026
Bounce House After Dark 🤩 pic.twitter.com/Q1EvN72YA0
The Knights are also going to finish their 2026 home slate on a weekday with their Senior Knight game against Iowa State getting shifted from Nov. 21 to Nov. 20. UCF is no stranger to playing its last game of a season in the Acrisure Bounce House on a weekday, having done so recently in 2024.
The selections of these two games bring UCF's weekday game total to three for the 2026 season, joining its season opener on Thursday, Sep. 3, against Bethune-Cookman. All three of the Knights' weekday games are played in the Acrisure Bounce House, accounting for three of their seven total home games for the 2026 slate in Orlando. This also makes the 2026 season slated to be the first time that the Knights play more than two games on a weekday in a single season since 2022.
The Knights join Texas Tech as the only two Big 12 programs to have multiple home games shifted back to a weekday, though they are not the only programs that had two games selected. TCU, Iowa State and Houston each had two road games selected to be played on a weekday.
Kick-off times and network designations remain to be determined.
The Knights are currently in the middle of spring practice, which culminates in an open practice to the public at the Acrisure Bounce House on Ma2 at 10 a.m.
Catch up on more UCF news below:
The 2026 UCF Knights Transfer Portal Tracker
Bryson Turner is a sports journalist who covers UCF Athletics. Turner has contributed to the Black and Gold Banneret, the home for UCF Athletics on SB Nation. He has called the Orlando area home since the age of 8 and received his bachelor's and master's degrees from UCF.
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